I browsed through Microsoft's E3 coverage of themselves via Xbox LIVE. Gears of War 3 was a given. We've known that this game was coming since, well, we all beat Gears of War 2. GoW3 was demoed over a year ago on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Well, to be fair, a trailer was shown. A good trailer, but still a trailer. It's E3 presence was seen a mile away. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was also a known. Seeing it was cool, but nothing we didn't expect. The bulk of Microsoft's showing was Kinect games, which are about as exciting as a new Mario Party announcement, and oodles of third party games that are coming out for every other system known to man.
The only really exciting announcement was that of Halo 4 (which I have mixed feelings about) and the new Xbox 360 Dashboard.
Halo 4 was a surprise to me, got me excited, but also made me feel funny about the direction Halo is taking. I rather thought that Master Chief's farewell in Halo 3 was very fitting. Although I miss playing as my favorite Spartan, it played to the story well and tied everything up real nice and neat. Bringing him back sort of nullifies that closure I felt when I thought I had seen the last of Spartan 117. I'm sure it will be an excellent game, but I'm not sure how I feel about the story direction, which is one of Halo's major selling points.
The new dashboard is important for a reason that was not really discussed at E3. Microsoft is unifying it's user interfaces across it's three successful platforms to create a seamless experience when moving from one to the other. This new dashboard is modeled after the Windows Phone Metro UI and will also be applied to Windows 8 in some way.
From left to right: Windows Phone Metro UI, Windows 8 Start Screen, Xbox 360 Dashboard
Welcome to Windows Everywhere
Seeing Call of Duty was rather blah for me. It's the same crap Activision has been selling you yearly for the last 5 years at $60 a pop. CoD is the annual sports game of shooters. Don't get me wrong, CoD is fun and pretty and everything it's supposed to be. But amazing it is not. Tomb Raider was also a mute point to me. E3 press conferences should show case what's happening in your world. When you show cross platform material (except in a certain situation that I will address later), you're essentially stating that there isn't enough interesting going at your home base to fill even an hour and half showing. I can play Ghost Recon on almost every current console and PC or Mac. I could just as easily have seen this at Sony's show.
Speaking of Sony, props to them for spending all of 60 seconds on the PSN situation. I realize that this is something they'd like to put behind them, but Sony owes PSN users a huge apology, not so much for getting hacked (these things happen) but for the lousy way that they handled it.
Anyway, enough about that. Let's talk games. Not being a huge follower, I didn't pay Sony much attention. But I do want to touch on one thing. The PlayStation Vita. You may have read my initial reaction to it when it was still called the Next Generation Portable. All of those doubts and questions still exist, and from what I heard from many journalist who were present, the extra bulk makes this handheld uncomfortable to hold. What impressed me was the pricing. The Wi-Fi only model is $250. That's the price of the Nintendo 3DS. Never before has Nintendo had any competition in the handheld market on price. This makes me glad I haven't bought a 3DS yet, as I'm sure Nintendo will drop it $50 once the Vita is released. The 3G version was rumored already, and the additional $50 plus a data plan doesn't seem worth it, especially since it's on AT&T's less than reliable network. Also, most people who are wealthy enough or technologically advanced enough to consider such a purchase could add tethering to their existing smartphone plan and not have to worry about switching carriers. My LG T-Mobile G2X does tethering for $15 a month and is on T-Mobile's much more reliable and faster 4G (HSPA+) network. Based on AT&T's iPad data plans, my guess is that my tethering plan is cheaper than the Vita data package.
At $250, Sony is ready to bring it to Nintendo on price.
Nintendo, although most of what was shown was already leaked prior to the official unveiling, had an excellent presence. The show opened with an excellent tribute to The Legend of Zelda, which turns 25 this year. This was followed by lots of Nintendo 3DS news. Kid Icarus: Uprising's multiplayer was revealed. Star Fox 64 3D was shown a little. Super Mario 3D was demoed. The 3DS Shop Channel with Virtual Console was launched. Everything we expected.
Then came the confirmation the world was waiting for. Just like in 2005 when Nintendo shocked the world with the Wii Remote, Nintendo dropped the bomb with Wii U and it's touch screen/traditional game pad. A short video was shown to demo just how the controller could be used. All software shown was merely conceptual, and nothing shown was actually in development. But it didn't stop me from getting excited. Playing on the screen without tying up the TV when my wife wants to watch Hoarders on TLC, finally seeing Link in real time and in HD (yes, he was present in non pre-rendered 1080p glory, even if only in concept form), the ability to play my current Wii library with a traditional input scheme, and the many different game types it can create, it was great. But the best and biggest surprise of the show was that once Masahiro Sakurai has completed work on Kid Icarus: Uprising, he and his team will begin work on Super Smash Bros Wii U and 3DS, a set of two games that will work together to become the best and biggest Super Smash Bros yet.
The Wii U controller. The console looks like a Wii that
got married and let himself go.
I said above that there is one situation where showing third party multiplatform games is okay. Here is that time and why. Nintendo traditionally is ignored by major third party publishers and that usually results in many core gamers choosing competing systems. It was very important for Nintendo to show that Assassin's Creed, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Resident Evil, and many other high profile, big budget games would no longer be skipping Nintendo's home console. Gamers will no longer have to have a Nintendo console as well as an Xbox or PlayStation to have Nintendo's excellent library of first party titles and the other third party titles that Xbox and PlayStation gamers enjoy.
Not announced at Nintendo's event, UbiSoft let it slip that Nintendo is abandoning the Friend Code system for a user account system much like Microsoft's Gamertag system. This is also huge news.
If you like, you can claim I'm bias, but I'm going to have to say that most of the exciting news came from Nintendo this year. As I pointed out in my last post, Wii U leaves Microsoft and Sony in a very precarious position, one that they can benefit from if they play their cards right, or one that can blow up in their faces if they aren't careful. Vita's price point will definitely make Nintendo think about lowering the 3DS price. As fun as Kinect and Move are, they have nothing on Wii's proven Wii Remote control method in terms of accuracy. And, the fact that over 80 million people already have Wii Remotes that will work with Wii U, Nintendo can give us traditional gaming with the traditional game pad, motion gaming with our Wii Remotes, and the touch gaming of the Nintendo DS with the new touch screen. Nintendo is in a situation where it would be very difficult to screw it up.
This happened in real time.
My only complaint: Link is still right handed. Blast you, Wii Remote.
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